Crib from heartless executive (6)
I believe the answer is:
manger
'crib' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'heartless executive' is the wordplay.
'heartless' means to remove the middle letters.
'executive' becomes 'manager' (I've seen this before).
'manager' with its centre taken out is 'MANGER'.
'from' is the link.
(Other definitions for manger that I've seen before include "Cattle-trough" , "German (anag)" , "Trough for cattle-feed" , "part of Nativity scene" , "A stable trough - Bethlehem had a famous one" .)